Pages

Wednesday, 23 July 2014

(vol 1) CHAPTER 24: “CampNaNoWriMo - Day 23”

A week to go and things are starting to pick up. I know I
could be worried with 7000+ words still to write but all I need do is think
back to NaNoWriMo 2007 when I had 6 days left and I somehow managed 21000
words. In fact on the 29th of that November I stayed up until 3am
and managed 8000 words in one hit, crossing the finish line and allowing me to
take the 30th off writing.

So I’m not worried. Yet.

CAMP UPDATE

So, despite a couple of days with nothing written, I’ve done a
lot better, not just with the word count but with the plot too. There’s going
to be a fair bit of rewriting come August but I know it is all making the story
better.

I’m annoyed that I thought I was ready at the beginning of
the month because, if I’ve learnt anything over the last 23 days it’s that I couldn’t
have been further from prepared.

All my previous NaNo’s have started very loose and I’ve built
the idea as I’ve gone along, never really losing momentum (except that first
year when I ‘accidently’ bought a time sucking Xbox). But with TATTOO I planned
and planned and planned; plot, scenes and characters. And all it did was fence
me in and stop me exploring.

I would say I’m a panster but I still need a little planning
before diving in; it’s clear that a little prep beats uber prep. I was the same
at school and college. I found that I could over revise for exams and build up
my own expectations. When I spent the night before just glancing at notes for
half an hour I seemed to recall knowledge easier.

DAY 17 – 144 words

Although the word count is low it’s not a bad day but just me
determined to get something, anything written down before going to bed. I
finished the last chapter I’d worked on and renamed it Chapter 7: Fall Out.

DAY 18 – 1213 words

This was better. A good Friday night. Worked on Chapter 8: World of Hurt which was the
explosive confrontation between Julie and Craig. He has seen the tattoo and is
not too happy about it. I then decided to skip Chapter 9 which was another ‘stranger’
scene. I wasn’t stuck for what to write but I haven’t decided where he’ll be at
that point in the story yet. I want to keep tracking back to him throughout as
his journey closes in towards his target. So instead I worked on Chapter 10: Feedback. This brings the
tattoo itself front and centre and is where things start to get . . . weird.

DAY 21 – 1768 words

One of my best days writing this month. Despite having
finally typed up and edited the third draft of my 1000 word Dog Day entry (see
Flash! Friday update below) I still wanted to get a little bit started on Chapter 11: Suspicions. So that’s what I
did. I was tired and couldn’t really see how the scene would end so I only
planned to set it up for another writing session. And then the main character, Julie,
left her flat to go looking for Craig and I managed 1700 words in an hour. This
scene has become the turning point for Julie. It’s the first time since she
fell into the negative and abusive relationship that’s she’s stood up for herself.
And it ends explosively.

DAY 22 – 566 words

Not much done yesterday but I go out to a pub quiz every
Tuesday. With my son down for bed and the babysitter (hey mum) not having
arrived yet I booted up the PC and started Chapter
12: Proof. This goes back to another Julie and Eleanor scene with the
tattoo become something Julie wants answers about now.

FLASH! FRIDAY UPDATE

Well it was inevitable that the wave I was riding couldn’t
stay high forever. Last Friday’s entry, ‘Perfection’
stayed out of the headlines this time round.

I think I accidently paid too much attention to the Flash
Point critique for ‘If You Go
Down To The Woods Today’ with another story taken from a view point off
camera. I honestly didn’t intend it that way and only noticed the day after I posted
the entry. To be fair I struggled with the prompt and nearly chose to skip it
for a week. I’m glad my friend convinced me to give it a go. And also, there
were some absolutely fantastic entries that I was up against with Sinead O’Hart's entry, ‘China In Your
Hand’, being extremely moving. It was made even more powerful by Rebekah Postupak’s
critique in Mondays Flash
Point.

With Flash Friday out of the way I spent the weekend with my
attention solely on the Dog
Days challenge. The day after the prompt went up a couple of weeks ago I
had an idea that then drifted away and slowly became something else. I wanted
to do something superhero related but it wasn’t working.

Something that surprised me was that the word count was as
limiting at 1000 words as the Flash Friday is at 150. I honestly looked forward
to having more wiggle room but I never found it.

So the story I ended up with went through several phases
which included four boys helping an alien in their towns abandoned mine with
the grateful alien then bestowing powers on the all. This sucked as I struggled
to tell the story, explain the alien to four boys who had no concept of aliens
as well as explaining ‘gifted’ powers. Rubbish.

And yet I thought I could contain it more by changing out alien
for demon. This also did not work.

I was about to give up (it’s a running theme with me) when I suddenly
had a brainstorm and I came up with the idea I finally entered. Much happier
with it although I am worried now that the sci-fi super power element might
ruin it and that I should have kept it more ‘real world’. Only time will tell
if I made the right decision. Next week I will present the story and break down
the decisions I made.

Meanwhile the judges will pick a shortlist of 10 tomorrow with
the three winners then being voted by the readers and writers themselves. Have
briefly looked at a couple and am looking forward to spending an evening
reading through them all.

Fingers crossed for the next twenty-four hours.

SCRIVENER REVIEW

This week I had my first negative thoughts to Scrivener but I’m
thinking it might be part of the whole ‘over planning’ thing I mentioned. If I do
go ahead and purchase it then I wonder if I will plan stories out with the
corkboard and cast my characters on the first draft of future stories. It
seemed good to start but it only added to the lack of freedom. I feel better
now that I’m past all my planned chapters and going wherever I feel like. I
also know that, when I come to rewrite, it will be the planned chapters that
need the most work.

At the end of the day, the function of Scrivener I’m most
interested in and looking forward to trying is the formatting and compiling. I’m
hoping this will make it easier to put a finished product together across different
formats with ease.

So, one week to go with CampNaNo. This time next week will be
the penultimate night of writing. I hope I’m close to the finish line by then.

Big shout out to Dramatic
Lyric and the rest of my Cabin. Good luck to you guys in the final week.